Flagstaff archives show birth of Code Talkers

In this April 29, 2011 photo, Karl Eberhard, who serves as the Flagstaff City Architect and Historic Preservation Officer, stands in front of the El Pueblo Motel, which was a recruitment center for code talkers during World War II. in Flagstaff, Ariz.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — You can tell a lot about a person by the papers they leave behind.

Case in point: The papers in the Philip Johnston Collection in the Special Collections & Archives at NAU's Cline Library.

Johnston is best known as the man who pushed successfully for the adoption of the Navajo language for secure military communications in the hands of the Navajo Code Talkers during World War II.

The three acid-free, cardboard boxes in the library hold a variety of paper materials, including tissue-thin, hand-typed letters from the 1920s, '30s and '40s, yellowing copies of magazine articles, colorful maps, tickets and brochures from Mexico, transcripts of oral histories, Code Talker reunion programs and thick manuscripts of Johnston's writings, including various articles on the Southwest.

A gap in correspondence from 1942 through '45 may reflect the top-secret nature of the Navajo Code Talkers and their work.

However, some of the more yellowing letters, sent from Los Angeles, are from just after the war and deal with Johnston's efforts to help the Navajo people.

"If you have been on the Navajo reservation you will realize how terribly unprovided for the area is in terms of roads and public services generally," Johnston wrote in a Nov. 4, 1946, letter to William Brophy, the commissioner of Indian Affairs, Department of the Interior.

The Johnston Collection provides a fascinating view into the mind of a man whose brilliant code concept undoubtedly aided the Allied victory in the war.

"Here is someone with obvious regional and local interest," commented Sean Evans, an archivist at Cline. "When you think historically about anything, there is so much stuff that people just throw away because they don't think it's important."

Online through Cline Library, there are also more than 2,000 black and white photographs that Johnston took, many of them with Native American themes, including scouting trips on the reservation.

There is also a 1940 photo of the old El Pueblo Motor Inn in Flagstaff, which Johnston built in 1937, working with contractor R.E. Goble.

Described in a 1936 Coconino Sun article as an "auto court," the court was described as having "a five-room caretaker's home and three double camp cottages. They will be of Spanish design, stuccoed outside and plastered inside."

Johnston had moved back to northern Arizona with his wife Bernice, and they had decided to make this location their permanent home.

They purchased a site 3 miles east of downtown Flagstaff for the motel.

They also built a private residence behind the motel.

Today, the facility, now called the El Pueblo Motel, still stands on east Route 66 and is the oldest motel remaining along Route 66 outside of the downtown area.

It was from the motel that Johnston engineered the recruitment of Navajos to serve in the Marines as Code Talkers.

The property itself is eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places as a national landmark because it exemplifies the motor court building type and it is associated with an individual who made significant contributions to American and world history.

"The preservation of heritage resources is how we connect to and learn from the past, and importantly, it's how we implement the Regional Plan and preserve the character of our community," said Karl Eberhard, historic preservation officer for the city of Flagstaff.

The El Pueblo Motor Inn is one of 27 remaining motels, out of 50 in 1960, from Chicago to Los Angeles that contribute to the National Historic District of Route 66.

Johnston was born on Sept. 17, 1892, in Topeka, Kan., and died on Sept. 11, 1978, in San Diego, Calif.